April Iraq's deadliest month in almost five years

Iraq suffered its most violent month for almost five years in April when 712
people were killed across the country, the United Nations has said.

April was Iraq's deadliest month in nearly five years, according to the United Nations, with more than 700 people killedPhoto: REUTERS/Mohammed Ameen

By David Blair

6:01PM BST 02 May 2013

This rising drumbeat of violence reflects an increasingly bitter political conflict. Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister of a Shia-led government, has been accused of naked sectarianism, purging members of the Sunni minority from his administration.

Having boycotted the previous poll, Sunnis voted in large numbers during the last election in 2010 and the party they mainly favoured, Iraqiya, came first with 91 seats compared to Mr Maliki's 89.

But the prime minister put together a coalition that allowed him to stay in power and then used his victory to sack key Sunni politicians, notably Rafie al-Issawi, the respected finance minister, who was dismissed in December.

When Sunnis demonstrated against what they viewed as a Shia sectarian government, they were often bloodily repressed. Last month, the security forces destroyed a protest camp in the Sunni town of Hawija, killing at least 20 people.

"What the Sunnis did in 2010 was to invest in the ballot box," said Toby Dodge, the author of "Iraq: From War to a New Authoritarianism". "Since then, they have been systematically betrayed in their investment in democracy."

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Armed Sunni extremists fighting to overthrow Mr Maliki's government now have more popular support. Al-Qaeda's organisation in the country – which styles itself the Islamic State of Iraq – has carried out a series of highly sophisticated attacks on government targets.

In March, they destroyed the justice ministry with four bombs, killing at least 20 people. Last year, al-Qaeda was down to a few hundred operatives in Iraq. Today, experts believe it has about 2,000.

The UN's assistance mission, which tracks the level of violence in Iraq, said that "712 people were killed and another 1,633 were wounded in acts of terrorism and acts of violence" during the course of April.

Of the dead, 595 were civilians and a further 117 were security force personnel. Almost 30 per cent of all the killings took place in Baghdad.

The violence is still much lower than during the bloodiest days of a sectarian civil war in 2006, when between 2,000 and 3,000 were killed every month. But the rising trend is of concern to Western governments.

"First the Sunnis were ignored and then they were suppressed," said Mr Dodge. "This is helping to cause growing alienation."

Mr Maliki commands one of the largest military machines in the world: the combined strength of Iraq's security forces totals 933,000 soldiers – or 18 per cent of the entire male workforce.

As well as the increasingly sectarian nature of the domestic political battle, the conflict in Syria is also worsening the situation in Iraq. Mr Maliki is quietly helping his old ally, Iran, to prop up President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The Iraqi leader does not want Mr Assad to fall because this would almost certainly lead to a Sunni government taking power in Syria. Any such regime in Damascus would be able to arm their co-religionists over the border in Iraq's vast western desert province of Anbar.

But Mr Maliki's undeclared backing for Mr Assad also helps to stir the resentment of Iraqi Sunnis.